Return Of Django

The Upsetters... Return Of Django (1969, Trojan Records – TRL 19 .mp3 audio).

Supercar and UFO

Supercar - Episode 1 - Rescue (Part One, Flash Video 12:21) and UFO - Opening Credits (Flash Video 01:14). RIP: Gerry Anderson.

The Birth Of Tragedy Magazine's Fear, Power, God

The Birth Of Tragedy Magazine's Fear, Power, God at UbuWeb Sound (1987, CFY Records – CFY-004). A spoken word compilation with contributions by Lydia Lunch, Jello Biafra, Allen Ginsberg, Henry Rollins, and, most notoriously, Charles Manson.

Letterheads: Promotions on Paper, 1850s-1975

Letterheads: Promotions on Paper, 1850s-1975 at the WHS. "...Email and texting have superseded not just letter writing but physical stationery itself. For most of the last two centuries, custom-designed letterheads were a universal way of proclaiming who you were. Historical letterheads are prime examples of early branding, as well as specimens of commercial typography and its allied printing arts. Because they're so evocative of a specific time and place, they fascinate anyone interested in advertising, local history or graphic design. This gallery features more than 300 images spanning more than a century of design, from two archival collections at the Wisconsin Historical Society."

Henry Darger: Landscapes

Henry Darger: Landscapes at Ricco/Maresca Gallery. "...Darger's landscapes set the ambience for his tales of good versus evil; they are at once romantic, poetic, and often violent. Using tracings from the newspaper clippings and magazine illustrations he amassed, Darger would meticulously configure his compositions. He paid particular attention to visual space and perspective in his landscapes, utilizing a copy machine to size his figures relative to their placement within the picture plane. Some of his landscapes evoke images of war torn battlefields from the Civil War, which the artist reputedly studied. Blustering winds, sleeting rain, and turbulent clouds inhabit his paintings; (he kept a daily weather journal for 10 years). While other landscapes are more saccharin in feel featuring imaginary places with child-like names, set within Darger's Catholic land of Angelina, such as Finger Mountain, Peppermint Place, Onion City and Mistletoe Station."

Sinister Pop

Ralston Crawford... Man in front of Poster (1964. Gelatin silver print). From the exhibition Sinister Pop at the Whitney Museum of American Art. "...Although Pop art often calls to mind a celebration of postwar consumer culture, this exhibition focuses on Pop’s darker side, as it distorts and critiques the American dream. Themes of exaggerated consumption, film noir and the depiction of women in art, the dystopic American landscape, and the intersection of popular culture and politics, are explored through works by acknowledged masters such as Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, Ed Ruscha, and Andy Warhol, as well as by many artists not traditionally associated with Pop whose art may be understood within its wider field of reference. These include William Eggleston, Peter Saul, Christina Ramberg, and Vija Celmins, among others."

George Tice: Platinum/Palladium Photographs

George Tice: Platinum/Palladium Photographs at Nailya Alexander Gallery in New York, NY. "...Exhibited internationally, George Tice’s work is represented in over one hundred museum collections, including MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Newark Museum. George Tice’s first show in New York was at the Underground Gallery in 1965. In 1972, he had a one-man show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Paterson, New Jersey and in 2002, ICP exhibited George Tice: Urban Landscapes."

Camera Work: Vintage Photogravures 1903-1917

Paul Strand... Photograph - New York (1917). From the exhibition Camera Work: Vintage Photogravures 1903-1917 at Charles A. Hartman Fine Art. "...an exhibition of stunning early twentieth-century photography. Published by Alfred Stieglitz from 1903 to 1917, Camera Work was a quarterly photographic journal known for its exquisitely printed photogravures. Featuring some of the most important photographers of the era, Camera Work strove to establish photography as a fine art. The exhibition includes images by such luminaries as Alvin Langdon Coburn, Baron Adolph de Meyer, Frank Eugene, Heinrich Kuhn, George H. Seeley, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Paul Strand and Clarence H. White."

Santa's Too Fat For the Hula Hoop

The Pixies with Thurl Ravenscroft as Santa Claus... Santa's Too Fat For the Hula Hoop (.mp3 audio 02:11). Thurl Ravenscroft was a voice actor and singer - the original voice of Tony The Tiger and the vocalist for "You're A Mean One, Mister Grinch."

2 Christmas Goodies from UbuWeb

William S. Burroughs... The Junky's Christmas (1993, directed by Nick Donkin and Melodie McDaniel). "...It was Christmas Day and Danny the Car Wiper hit the street junksick and broke after seventy-two hours in the precinct jail. It was a clear bright day, but there was warmth in the sun. Danny shivered with an inner cold. He turned up the collar of his worn, greasy black overcoat. This beat benny wouldn't pawn for a deuce, he thought." Also... The Reverend Glen Armstrong... Even Squeaky Fromme Loves Christmas (1994, .mp3 audio 03:15).

Eigagogo

The fabulous gallery at Eigagogo - Exploring Japanese Cinema.

Julie Blackmon: Day Tripping

Julie Blackmon: Day Tripping at Robert Mann Gallery. "...As the oldest of nine children, Blackmon's work has always drawn inspiration from her familial life, her extended family playing the role of both model and muse. At the same time, her work looks far back into the history of art to the paintings of the Dutch Renaissance master Jan Steen, who was known for his carefully constructed scenes of domestic chaos. However, in this newest work, we see Blackmon taking a more contemporary approach by shifting her focus to the work of the French painter, Balthus. His paintings of street scenes include many figures who seem to exist each in their own worlds — often indifferent to what is going on around them."

Star Quality: The World of Noël Coward

Star Quality: The World of Noël Coward at the NYPL. "...The New York Public Library has a large collection of material related to Noël Coward including copies of production scripts, manuscript letters and telegrams, oral histories by friends and colleagues, and videos of stage productions of later revivals of his work in the Theater on Film and Tape archive. Among the most striking items in our collection, though, are the photographs of original and revival productions of Coward’s plays and musicals in the photograph collections of the Billy Rose Theatre Division."

Shomei Tomatsu

Shomei Tomatsu... Jidai Matsuri (Festival of the Ages) (1983, pigmented inkjet print). From an exhibition of Works by Shomei Tomatsu at Galerie Priska Pasquer in Cologne, Germany. "...the second exhibition in Germany to be devoted exclusively to the works of Japanese artist Shomei Tomatsu. The exhibition features a selection of black-and-white photographs and, for the first time in a gallery exhibition outside Japan, color works by the artist from the late 1960s and the 1970s. Shomei Tomatsu is regarded as the most important figure in Japanese post-war photography and his work has had a key influence on subsequent artists such as Daido Moriyama, Yutaka Takanashi and Nobuyoshi Araki."

Breweries, Beer and Bars in Wisconsin History

Breweries, Beer and Bars in Wisconsin History at the WHS. ...Brewing has been a Wisconsin tradition since the Territorial era, and records of the state's earliest breweries date back to the 1830s. The growth of breweries in Wisconsin is often linked to the increased settlement of German immigrants in the state. These Germans brought with them the knowledge of German brewing techniques, an affinity for German-style lagers, and a fierce pride that instilled in them a need to maintain their cultural identity."

Enthusiasm! The Donbass Symphony

Dziga Vertov... Enthusiasm! The Donbass Symphony (1930) at UbuWeb Sound. "...Enthusiasm! The Donbass Symphony is possibly Dziga Vertov's most revolutionary achievement: a symphony of abstract industrial noise for which a specially designed giant mobile recording system was constructed (it weighed over a ton) in order to capture the din of mines, furnaces and factories. For Vertov, the introduction of sound film didn't mean talkies, but the opportunity to collage, montage and splice together constructions of pure environmental noise."